Homemade Pie Crust
Homemade Pie Crust is the most extraordinary, flaky, wonderful homemade pie crust recipe you will ever eat. This stuff just seems to dissolve in your mouth when you eat it. It's terrific with sweet or savory pies as well as pie crust cinnamon rolls. Every pie will be mouthwatering and irresistible with this fantastic pie crust.
Equipment
- 1 large mixing bowl
- waxed paper
- 1 Rolling Pin
- pie plates or ramekins as desired
- 1 pastry blender
- 1 wooden spoon
- measuring cups
- measuring spoons
- 1 pastry wheel if making a lattice crust
- 1 knife to cut slits in top crust
Ingredients
- 2 cups UNBLEACHED all-purpose flour bleached flour toughens baked goods
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 cup Crisco shortening no substitutes
- Ice water
Instructions
- Mix dry ingredients in bowl with a wooden spoon.
- Add shortening and cut in thoroughly with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- Add enough ice water to make dough.
- Add about ¼ cup at a time. Don’t add too much!
- Work the ice water into the flour mixture with your fingers.
- Lift flour from the bottom and allow water to absorb into the flour at the bottom.
- The mixture should not stick together too well.
- This will not be like a cookie dough that is well-blended.
- Once you have enough water in the dough that you can form a large ball (with the least amount of water necessary), place dough on waxed paper that has been sprinkled very generously with flour.
- Put more flour on top of dough and cover with waxed paper.
- With a rolling pin, roll out dough (roll from the middle and work outward in all directions).
- Keep checking to make sure you have enough flour.
- You may have to lift the waxed paper multiple times and add a little more flour.
- Lift top layer of waxed paper off dough carefully so dough doesn’t stick to the paper.
- Gently and quickly roll dough in half. Then in half again to make it in quarters.
- Place over top of pan and gently unfold so dough covers the entire pan with a small overhang all the way around.
- Work dough into pan so that it fits smoothly into plate.
- Make a crust by fluting the edges (check any cookbook if you need directions).
- To make a Lattice Crust: Roll out remaining dough on floured waxed paper as above.
- Remove top layer of waxed paper.
- Cut dough in ½”-3/4” widths with pastry wheel or knife in long strips.
- Place strips in one direction across pie.
- Then place strips in opposite direction to go the full length of the pie shell.
- Most fruit pies will take about two hours at 300°. However, if the sauce is not bubbling so that it is thick when it bubbles up, you may have to cook it a little longer.
- Keep an eye on it and start checking after 60 minutes.
- Long oblong (9x13”) deep dish pies take at least two hours or longer.
Notes
NOTE: Fruit pies usually do better baking at reduced temperatures. This helps the crust not get too brown. If crust starts getting too brown, cover pie loosely with foil.
NOTE: If you bake the pie too quickly at higher temperatures, the crust turns brown and the pie is soupy in the middle--meaning it has not cooked long enough. Lower temperatures and longer cooking times are the key to wonderful fruit pies.
NOTE: Don't add pie filling to bottom crust until the top crust is ready to place on top. Otherwise, the juices will cause the bottom crust to become soggy.
NOTE: Most pies (even fruit pies) will be done after two hours of baking time at 300 degrees. The way to check for doneness in a pie is to make sure the syrup bubbles up thickly through the slits in the top crust or lattice crust. Once the syrup thickens (like regular pie filling) the pie is done.
NOTE: If you take the pie out of the oven prematurely, the syrup will be all over the bottom of the dish when you cut into the pie and it's very messy.
© Can’t Stay Out of the Kitchen
Nutrition
Calories: 210kcalCarbohydrates: 22gProtein: 3gFat: 12gSaturated Fat: 3gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.0004gSodium: 122mgPotassium: 31mgFiber: 0.01gCalcium: 10mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!